I was recommended Radical Candor as a more contemporary take on Marshall B. Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication, but I think it also works as a more up‑to‑date reference for much of the material covered in What Did You Say? The Art of Giving and Receiving Feedback by Charles N. Seashore, Edith Whit...
I didn’t enjoy Shift as much as the Wool. In a few places it still gripped me when parts of the overarching story were hinted at and later on explained. It was great to know where the Silos came from and why, but I didn’t care at all about Mission and I struggled to care about Solo beyond the penult...
On Wednesday evening I had the pleasure of speaking to ACCU Oxford about ‘Beyond the Code: Designing Services That Stand the Test of Time’. I haven’t been to Oxford since 2012 when the ACCU Conference was held there, before it was moved to Bristol the following year. Oxford was as I remembered it an...
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Beyond the Code: Designing Services That Stand the Test of Time Wednesday, 26th February 2026 @ 13:45 nor(DEV):conThe Kings Centre, 63-75 King St, Norwich NR1 1PH RSVP As software engineers, it’s easy to get lost in the excitement of implementing clever business logic: the algorithms, the workflows,...
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When: Thursday, 12th February @ 6.30pmWhere: Dick's Bar, 19 Bedford St, Norwich NR2 1ARRSVP: https://www.meetup.com/norfolk-developers-nordev/events/312926991/Norfolk Developers and Dick's Bar are very kindly hosting my revised, 'So you think you can lead a team?' talk.So you think you can lead a te...
Having just finished The Testaments, I found the experience somewhat underwhelming. While it’s undeniably interesting to return to the world of Gilead, the novel takes a long time to gather momentum, and even once it does, it never quite reaches the depth or impact of The Handmaid’s Tale. The pacing...
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I didn’t dive into AI. I was a reluctant adopter. Not because I feared it would take my job, but because I assumed the learning curve would be steep, time consuming, and probably frustrating. In reality, it turned out to be none of those things.After spending a decent amount of time with ChatGPT and...
I grew up in the 80s and 90s being told, over and over, that everyone was essentially the same. Treat everyone the same, expect the same, design for the same, that was the message. Reading Invisible Women has shifted that foundation more than I expected.What struck me most wasn’t just the scale of t...
Building Services That ScalePart 2 of Beyond the Code: Designing Services That Stand the Test of Time When we hear the word service, it sounds simple, almost obvious. In practice, defining what a service is can be surprisingly nuanced. A service isn’t just code running on a server. It isn’t intercha...
One of the most powerful things you can do as a leader is to talk to your team every day. It sounds simple, but it’s often overlooked, especially in distributed teams. Daily conversations help build and maintain relationships, foster trust, and remind your team that they matter as people, not just a...